رضا کراچیان

Promoting the cultivation of low-water-demand crops, such as medicinal plants, instead of high-water-demand crops is one of the recommended strategies for reducing water consumption in agriculture and combating droughts. However, voluntary adoption and active participation of farmers are key to the success of such initiatives. Therefore, in promoting such behavior, it is essential to have a proper understanding of farmers' behaviors and the factors influencing them. Considering the fundamental role of environmental psychology in understanding human behavior, this article seeks to examine the socio-psychological factors that affect farmers' behavior regarding the shift in cropping patterns from high-water-demand crops to medicinal plants. In this regard, a structured questionnaire was developed based on social cognitive theory following an in-depth review of the existing literature. After confirming the content and face validity of the questionnaire by farmers and experts, as well as verifying its reliability through a pilot sample using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, the final version of the questionnaire was distributed among the target population of the study, namely farmers residing in the Sojasrood plain in Zanjan province. Ultimately, data were collected through face-to-face interviews with 184 out of approximately 400 farmers, which was adequate in comparison to research standards. Additionally, for data analysis, a structural equation modeling approach using partial least squares was employed through SmartPLS software. After confirming the measurement model through the evaluation of construct validity and reliability, which includes convergent and discriminant validity, the results of the structural model showed that social cognitive theory could predict respectively 56% and 49% of the variance in farmers' intention and behavior towards cultivating medicinal plants. Furthermore, outcome expectancies were found to be the most significant predictor of intention while intention itself emerged as the most crucial determinant of the behavior. The findings of this study not only provide valuable insights for researchers but also serve as an effective guide for policymakers in implementing more efficient policies. In this context, various strategies such as cultural promotion and education of farmers have been proposed to encourage the cultivation of medicinal plants among farmers.

The decrease in access to groundwater resources and the constant drop in the water level of aquifers in different regions of the world due to the over extraction and unsustainable management of these resources have caused many environmental, economic and social problems. In the regard, lots of researches have been carried out about the groundwater market as a suitable solution for aquifers restoration. However in some cases the water market has increased the tension on water resources due to the lack of proper water market mechanism and monitoring of water withdrawals. The main purpose of this paper is to propose and evaluate a mechanism for the groundwater market in order to redistribute the water rights of groundwater resources and determine the exchange price in the market, taking into account the existing uncertainties. Therefore, proposing efficient and effective groundwater market mechanism, taking into account the institutional, economic, social and environmental components, is of great importance.  In this article, proposing and evaluating the mechanism of the smart water market, a model has been presented for the management of groundwater resources by considering the existing uncertainties. Also, remote sensing of evapotranspiration is proposed as a new approach to measure and monitor water consumption in the groundwater market. In this regard, the uncertainty resulting from the error of remotely-sensed evapotranspiration in the results of the groundwater market mechanism has been evaluated using the robust decision-making (RDM) method. Based on the uncertainty resulting from the error of the remote sensing of the evapotranspiration, the amount of allowed water rights in each season has been considered as an interval. Since the probabilistic distribution of these variables is not known, it is necessary to use non-probabilistic methods to analyze the uncertainty and reach a robust decision. In this regard, considering all possible combinations of seasonal water rights (as different market scenarios) and calculating the decision criteria for each of them, the degree of desirability of these scenarios can be determined. The methodology can be generalized for different study areas, however to evaluate its efficiency, the proposed models and algorithms are assessed using the data of Nough region in Rafsanjan plain, as one of the forbidden plains with high economic value of water in terms of pistachio production. By designing and evaluating groundwater market mechanism, taking into account the economic and social components, sustainable management of groundwater resources is expected to be promoted and farmers' livelihoods to be less affected by water restrictive policies. The results show that the proposed mechanism of the seasonal groundwater market has increased the economic efficiency of water consumption in the study area by 25%. Also, with the implementation of the water market, the redistribution of water rights has a better fit with the users’ cultivated area. Finally, using RDM method, the best scenario is determined as a decision including the allowed water rights values for four auction seasons in the year of market implementation. By choosing the allowed seasonal water rights within the range of strategies related to the best scenario, it is possible to achieve a sustainable policy of seasonal redistribution of groundwater rights in the presence of uncertainty in the market monitoring algorithm.

The failure and inefficiency of past water resources management policies have led to a movement to review, pathologize, and find ways to increase the efficiency of water resources management and subsequently increase water security. Since many factors affect water security, recognizing these factors can improve the performance of sustainable water resources management. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine the water security index (WSI) with the help of the watershed security assessment framework at the watershed scale to comprehensively analyze the water crisis and the consequences of this water shortage in the Neyshabour Plain. The statistical population of the study is 125 farmers in the area the sample size was determined using Cochran's formula and people were interviewed by random sampling method. Also, institutional factor questionnaires were completed by snowball sampling method from experts of water-related organizations. The results show that among the 5 main dimensions identified to assess water security, the water economy dimension has had an increasing trend during the 3 statistical periods studied (2012-2013, 2016-2017 and 2019-2020) and in 2019-2020, it has had the highest amount. But in general, the water security situation in the watershed of Neyshabour Plain has been decreasing over the past 10 years and is in a weak status. In this regard, if stakeholders in water resources management pay attention to the factors affecting the concept of water security, by using and implementing the framework presented in this study, it is possible to improve the compatibility capacity and develop effective operational plans with correct and timely pathology and achieve more stable and comprehensive management of water resources in the country's watersheds.

Interactions and conflicts, or in general, the relationships between different stakeholders in a large-scale water resources scheme, are very important factors affecting the status of water systems. In this study, the conflict was studied, mapped, and rooted in a water system using the social network analysis approach, utility analysis, and conflict tree. After finding the major problems in a water system, influential stakeholders were first identified. Then, using the social network analysis method the relationships between these stakeholders were studied to estimate their conflicts. Next, by assessing the desirability of stakeholders, the ground of conflict emerging between them was investigated using desirability mapping. Using the output of the desirability analysis, social network analysis, and important problems recognition, the roots, core, and results of the conflict were presented using the conflict tree approach. The catchment area in the west of Tehran, namely the Kan River basin, has been studied using the mentioned method. The little interest of the municipal institution in utilizing groundwater resources, the problem of subsidence and the quality of water resources, coupled with the interest in expanding green spaces and urban development are among the challenge between the regional municipality and the regional water authority. The minor consideration for the management of illegal water extraction, return water, aquatic ecosystems, and water quality has been the cause of conflict between the agricultural institution and the regional water authority. It is also critical that the interest of the industrial sector is focused on development of industries and other interests are of less importance in this sector. The lack of interest in institutions such as the urban development stakeholder to consider the water cycle's importance in urban development is another challenging issue.

The water shortage crisis that is sweeping the globe today has posed serious harm and threat to people around the world. Meanwhile, Iran is one of the water-scarce countries due to its location in the arid and semi-arid belt and fluctuations in rainfall. The water status in most of its regions is in a state of tension and sometimes crisis. The pervasive nature of water and the existence of numerous human and environmental factors affecting its reliability have greatly complicated the interactions between the human-environmental dimensions. Therefore, the study of these complex environmental systems that are affected by human actions is a major scientific challenge. This challenge must bridge the gap between the natural sciences and the social sciences and dominate modeling at different scales. Therefore, there is a need to integrate knowledge from the natural and social sciences. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to analyze the water crisis and the concept of water security by presenting a framework for Human-Environment System (HES) interactions in the Neishabur Plain watershed. In this regard, first, the process of changing the water issue in the Neishabur Plain watershed during 2011-2020 was investigated, and then, according to the identification of the prevailing situation in the watershed, considering the influence of various human and natural factors in the current crisis, to identify the main factors affecting the occurrence of the crisis and determining how they interact and feedback for a comprehensive analysis of the water crisis and the consequences of this water shortage in the region. The results of the investigation of the water issue in the area generally show a decrease in precipitation, warming of the air, increase in evaporation and transpiration, dryness, and more dehydration. This is while the largest volume of water harvesting in the basin (ca. 450 million m3 in the 2019-2020 water year) is also dedicated to the agricultural sector. In addition, the results show that understanding the hierarchical levels of environmental awareness and ultimately learning and practice based on key components and interactions identified by the HES framework, facilitates the analysis of system complexity.

In recent years, methods for evaluating the resilience of water resources management projects, especially during extreme conditions, have attracted much attention from researchers. Resilience is the ability of a system to withstand crises or successive difficulties so that it can recover or reach an acceptable level of performance. In previous works, the assessment of resilience of water supply and demand scenarios throughout a river basin has not been adequately researched. In addition, to decide on determining appropriate management scenarios, it is necessary to consider the powers, organizational positions and limitations of different stakeholders. In this paper, first, the resilience of a water supply-demand system under events with known and unknown probabilities is evaluated. In the next step, scenarios of water supply and demand resilience in Zarrinehrud river basin, which is the most important sub-basin of the Lake Urmia basin, are analyzed using a multi-agent-multi-criteria decision-making method. Then, the results are compared with those of a decision-making method without considering the role of stakeholders. Finally, to consider stakeholders utilities and powers, a combination of a leader-follower game and evidential reasoning (ER) approach is used to determine appropriate scenarios. The results showed that in the decision-making method with one level (without leader-follower game), the implementation cost of the selected scenario is 21% higher than that of the scenario selected using the multi-agent-multi-criteria decision-making method. Also, the difference between supply-demand resilience of the selected scenarios using the two methods is low and the resilience of the selected scenarios in both methods are appropriate. Finally, the payoff of the selected scenario in the multi-agent-multi-criteria decision-making method is estimated to be 0.72. Therefore, in using the leader-follower game, a more logical scenario is selected, so that the selected scenario has a reasonable resilience and cost.

Increasing water demands and climate variability in recent decades, as well as the presence of various stakeholders with conflicting goals and tendencies have resulted in serious challenges and complicated water allocation. In addition, there are some kinds of incomplete information in water resources management, which may include uncertainties about hydrological variables, available water resources, implementation of long-term plans and inter-basin water transfer projects. The existence of this information asymmetry will definitely affect the performance and decision-making of the stakeholders. So, it is necessary to consider these uncertainties in management of water resources in the basin. In this paper water allocation under asymmetric information between the ministry of energy as sender and the agriculture sector as receiver regarding implementing water desalination and transmission from the Persian Gulf to Isfahan industries has been modeled using signaling game a type of dynamic game with incomplete information. The equilibrium of the game is pooling consequently ministry of energy in all types of implementation of the national water transfer plan and unknown policies about the environmental or agricultural rights sends the same signal. The best strategy is to release only 60% of water requirements for wheat farmers from the Zayandehrood dam. On the other hand, agriculture sector should reduce their crop area by 10%. The results show that if the ministry of energy managers focus only on economic value and disregard the social, legal and environmental aspects even with this national plan will implement, they will not so inclined to afford agricultural and environmental rights.

Nowadays, water resources management in Lake Urmia and its restoration is one of the most important issues in Iran. One of the important reasons for the critical situation of the Lake Urmia basin is the lack of proper allocation of different parts (i.e. the required water for Lake Urmia). It is also important to consider the implications of lake water allocation to agricultural, environmental, potable, and industrial demand nodes. This paper intends to quantitatively evaluate these effects on different parts over 60 years under two management scenarios including full and partial allocation of Lake Urmia water requirement in the context of sustainability. For this purpose, three performance criteria such as reliability, resiliency, and vulnerability were evaluated in Lake Urmia basin. In the next step, using the concept of Evidential Reasoning (ER) approach, the sustainability of water resource management scenarios was investigated. The results showed that full allocation of the Lake Urmia water requirement resulted in reduced water allocation to the agricultural sector which may have different socio-cultural-political consequences. In spite of decline of water allocation in the agricultural sector in the first scenario (full allocation of Lake Urmia water requirement), this scenario was chosen as the top scenario. Also, the results of this paper indicate that the full allocation of Urmia Lake water requirement is a priority, which has led to the greater general sustainability of the Urmia Lake basin. Finally, it is suggested to further evaluate the sustainability of the agricultural sector by implementing different management scenarios.

The growth of the world's population, the increasing water demand all around the world and the reduction of available water due to climate change effects, have all led to increasing water resources stresses. These conditions would intensify the problems of allocation of water resources. Water trading can be considered as a non-structural approach to decrease the problems of water shortage, without need for huge investments in the installation of water supplies. With this approach, the contributors will also be more motivated to use water efficiently. According to the act of Supreme Council of Water about establish water markets in Iran, the legal issues about markets are mostly solved, and the water authorities have been emphasizing on developing an economical approach in water distribution. Despite all the determination about developing the water markets, neglecting other third-party impacts would lead to a failure. Considering the little experiences about water markets in Iran, this review paper has tried to analyze the effective causes on water markets establishment by analyzing the institutions of water markets in Australia, Western USA, Chile, Spain and China, as well as comparing their performances from different aspects.

Passive defense measures are used to preserve equipment and vital installations of a country from the financial damages and prevent or minimize human loss. In this paper, a risk analysis model is prepared in order to select and rank the considerations of passive defense in water treatment plants, case study of Salman Farsi. In other words, risks of all threatening factors of water treatment plant are determined separately, based on Fuzzy AHP method. Then, participation amount of every unit of Salman Farsi water treatment plant in total risk is determined. Obtained results of the proposed model, indicate that the factor of earthquake has threatening risk of 13.7% in Salman Farsi water treatment system which is the most risk among all factors. Also, the chlorine gas storage tanks, have the most effective role in total risk of Salman Farsi water treatment plant system.

Evaluation of a river self-purification capacity provides required information for a sustainable management of the river receiving pollutants. The main target of this paper is to study and predict the seasonal variation of self-purification capacity of Karun River, IRAN. Dissolved oxygen (DO), BOD, nitrate and pathogens were the main quality parameters, which were considered in this paper. To achieve this aim, a length of 113 km of the river was simulated using QUAL2Kw model and calibrated and verified using field measured data in 2010. The above mentioned datasets were used also to determine the critical periods of self-purification phenomenon, involving the model for BOD, nitrate and pathogen parameters. Furthermore, three scenarios were supposed and considered, including, 30% reduction in the waste waters flow, increasing the river monthly flow by 30% and finally decrement of the waste waters concentrations by 30%. The above mentioned scenarios were assumed in order to enhance the water quality of the river, during the months with no standard limits. Results indicated that, the decrease of nitrate in January and February and the decrease of BOD for all month except October up to 30 %, have had the most positive effects on river water quality. The 30% decrease of waste waters flow rate containing pathogens had the most positive effects on the river water quality.

Groundwater resources, as one of the most important factors in sustainable development, need to be intensely considered. Numerical models such as Modflow and MT3D is an applied tool for simulation and management of groundwater flow and solute transport. In this study, Shahrekord aquifer modeling is provided by the use of monthly data’s including hydraulic heads, depletion volume of the wells, springs and qanats, precipitation values. This model has been developed based on the assessment of the hydraulic conductivity and specific yield coefficients in the calibration process. The study year was divided to 12 monthly stress period for calibration (10 periods) and verification (2 periods). The results showed that the hydraulic conductivity from 6 to 16 m/day and specific yield from 0.03 to 0.07 were varied. The predicted water table in calibration process in comparison to observed values of water levels on piezometers with variance of 0.63. These results confirm the need model of groundwater flow prediction. Moreover, Effective molecular diffusion coefficient, longitudinal dispersity and distribution coefficient were calibrated to achieve acceptable variance between observed and calculated nitrate concentration. The most contaminant particles are in the south zone of aquifer where is the nearby urban wastewater wells. Moreover, the central and south parts of plain have the suitable situations for groundwater discharge because of the high amount of transmissivity.

Evaluating the past trends and existing predictions about the quality of water resources in Iran illustrate a gloomy condition in the near future. The spatial distributions of population and the pollution loads are uneven throughout the country and there is much more pressure on quality of water resources in regions with high population and economic activities. Also, climate change and periodic droughts can worsen the current water quality condition. In this paper, considering limited available data, the potential pollution loads of surface and groundwater resources in main basins in Iran are estimated for some water quality indicators such as Nitrate, Phosphorus and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD). To develop a conceptual model for assessing quality of water resources in Iran, a Driving Force-Pressure-StateImpact-Response framework is utilized. By evaluating different components of this framework, the main driving forces and pressures on water quality state of Iran are determined and the main responses for managing the current situation are discussed.

Optimization of conjunctive water use in hydro-systems considering quality constraints, due to the complexity of the resulting nonlinear problem solution, are addressed within a shortterm horizon by researchers. In this research, an optimizing model was proposed for longterm conjunctive use of water at the basin that maximizes the hydro-system operation reliability and considers TDS as a water quality index. In the proposed model, by the use of model decomposition and aggregation among different parts of the model, and developing a linearizing algorithm, modeling and analysis of large hydro-systems (at the basin scale) within a long-term horizon is provided so that the water quantity and quality deficits are minimized. Results of model application to Zayandehrud watershed in a thirty year period (2001-2030) showed the improvement of water quality at the Gavkhuni wetland up to 50% in dry and high demand months. Model prescribed operational rules have supplied water demands with 68% reliability along the Zayandehrud River. Model application to Zayandehrud hydro-system shows a meaningful improvement in the water supply with suitable quality in the river for agricultural and environmental demands. However, more detail of this improvement must be determined by other models that operate in smaller spatial and temporal scale, based on the results of the presented long-term model in this study.

Zayandehrud basin contains important water transfer projects, like transfer from Kuhrang springs to the basin and transport from basin to the Yazd and Kashan cities. Assessment of the impacts of these projects (and guidelines for alleviating these impacts) on water supply capability of Zayandehrud hydro-system, especially under long-term hydrologic uncertainties, is a very important issue for water sector decision makers and waterbasin stakeholders. In this research, the impacts of drought and future development of water transport projects is analyzed by a non-linear long-term optimization model for a 10-year horizon. Results showed that in normal (and transfer development scenario) conditions, on average 43% and 57% withdrawal from river and groundwater, respectively, leads to the least shortage in water supply to demands. Besides, Zayandehrud hydro-system operation can be managed in the case of a severe drought with 40% reduction in river flow that only 6% reduction occurs in water supply in comparison with normal condition. Analysis of the results showed the robustness of multi-period optimization model in minimizing the impacts of drought and water tranfer development by making use of the spatial and temporal potentials of Zayandehrud hydro-system.

Developing optimal operating policies for conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources when different decision makers and stakeholders with conflicting objectives are involved is usually a challenging task. This problem would be more complex when objectives related to surface and groundwater quality are taken into account. In this paper, a new methodology is developed for real time conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources. In the proposed methodology, a well-known multi-objective genetic algorithm, namely Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II) is employed to develop a Pareto front among the objectives. The Young conflict resolution theory is also used for resolving the conflict of interests among decision makers. To develop the real time conjunctive use operating rules, the Probabilistic Support Vector Machines (PSVMs), which are capable of providing probability distribution functions of decision variables, are utilized. The proposed methodology is applied to Tehran Aquifer in Tehran metropolitan area, Iran. Stakeholders in the study area have some conflicting interests including supplying water with acceptable quality, reducing pumping costs, improving groundwater quality and controlling the groundwater table fluctuations. In the proposed methodology, MODFLOW and MT3D groundwater quantity and quality simulation models are linked with NSGA-II optimization model to develop Pareto fronts among the objectives. The best solutions on the Pareto fronts are then selected using the Young conflict resolution theory. The selected solution (optimal monthly operating policies) is used to train and verify a PSVM. The results show the significance of applying an integrated conflict resolution approach and the capability of support vector machines for the real time conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources in the study area. It is also shown that the validation accuracy of the proposed operating rules is higher that 80% and based on these rules, the cumulative groundwater table variation is limited to 80 centimetres during a 15-year planning horizon.

Optimal management of water and nutrient could consider as effective on farm method to reduce pollution because agriculture is none point pollution. In this research, an optimal model was presented to reduce nitrate loss in furrow fertigation. The optimal model contains four simulation models for predicting runoff, deep percolation, nitrate concentration in runoff and nitrate concentration in deep percolation. Genetic algorithm was used for model solution. Decided values were inlet discharge, cutoff time of irrigation, starting time and duration of fertigation. Simulation model’s ability to simulate fertigation event cause a comprehensive optimal model of fertigation in different climate, plant, irrigation and fertigation situations. Field experiment of furrow irrigation under continues regime was used to evaluate optimal model. Optimal decided values for inlet discharge, cutoff time of irrigation, starting time and duration of fertigation was determined 0.184 L/s, 595.2 min, 7.5 min and 162.9 min in plant conditions. These values were 0.21 L/s, 537.1 min, 6.5 min and 143 min in none plant condition. Optimal decided values cause 113.86 and 118.3 mg/L mean nitrate loss from farm as runoff and deep percolation under plant and none plant conditions, respectively. Optimal model was increased nitrate concentration in deep percolation or decreased nitrate concentration in runoff by increasing inlet discharge because plant increase nitrate concentration in deep percolation. Results show plant has effect on optimization then it is appropriate to determine optimal decided values under plant and none plant conditions.

In this article simulation models combining quality reservoir and an optimization model algorithm Genetics, optimal utilization of the reservoir dams policy is developed. Qualitative Simulation Model Model used in this study derive comparative Fuzzy Neural, Which is within the optimization process, status stratification Reservoir quality and water quality of the output valves offers. In this model, little qualitative research in optimizing long-term horizons to long-term model And a little bit of quality annual model is broken so that the volumes Optimum reservoir at the end of each year comes from the model showed little long-term Qualitative and quantitative models of the annual values of the optimal output of the valves Due to volume constraints at the end of the year, the loses. In this paper effect This is the runtime versus Sadhknndh can reduce Mlahzhyy Reduction solutions will be examined carefully. Qualitative simulation of reservoir According to the process of selective removal of various valves takes place.Model legislation proposed for quantitative and qualitative operation of the reservoir 15 May dams that have water quality problems is used Is located.

This paper presents a Trading Discharge Permisions (TDP) model for equitable treatment cost allocation among dischargers in rivers. The model consists of two principal steps. In the first step, a trade-off curve between objectives is developed using a recently developed multi-objective technique namely Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The objective functions are average value of the treatment levels of dischargers and a fuzzy risk of violating the water quality standards. The best non-dominated solution on the trade-off curve, which shows an initial treatment cost allocation, is defined using the Young conflict resolution theory. In the second step, using the Normalized Nucleolus cooperative game, the maximum saving cost of cooperating dischargers in a coalition is allocated to them fairly. This saving cost allocation provides a fair optimal trading discharge permisions policy. To illustrate applicability of the proposed methodology, it is applied to the Zarjub river system in north of Iran. The efficiency of the methodology is also evaluated using some well-know criteria in the field of trading discharge permisions such as existence of hot spots and free riders.

Management Information Systems (MIS) are efficient tools for analyzing the structural problems in water resources and environmental systems management. This paper presents a MIS for river water quality data analysis. The MIS includes six modules, namely Data Management, Data Validation, Analytical Hierarchy Process, Water Quality Zoning, Water Quality Simulation, and Non-point Loads Estimation. The management of the data banks, statistical analysis and preparing different reports are the main tasks of the Data Management module. The Data Validation module uses statistical methods such as correlation analyses to verify and validate the input data related to the river water quantity and quality. Ranking pollution sources and determining their shares in river water pollution is done using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) module. The Water Quality Zoning module classifies the river reaches considering the concentration of different water quality variables. This module uses the fuzzy clustering method. In the proposed MIS, a river water quality simulation model is also used for determining the spatial and temporal variation of the water quality constituents in a river system. Finally, the characteristics of the non-point pollution sources are estimated using the Nonpoint Loads Estimation module. The proposed MIS has been used for water quality data analysis in the Karoon- Dez River system in southwestern part of Iran. The results show that the MIS can effectively support decision-makers in managing water quality in this river system.

Excessive water withdrawal from the rivers due to growing population, agricultural and industrial development, along with increase in the wastewater discharge to this systems, have intensified the need for integrated planning for water pollution control in river systems. In this paper, a framework of a master plan for water pollution control in the river systems and the results of a case study for developing a master plan for Karoon River water pollution control in Khuzestan Province in Iran are presented. The main pollution sources in the domestic, industrial, agricultural and agro-industrial sectors are identified and the effects of these pollution sources on the river water quality are investigated using the water quality simulation model. A Multiple-Criterion-Decision-Making (MCDM) technique, namely Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used in order to determine the share of different sectors in polluting the water resources. Data deficiency and the relative weights of different water quality variables are determined using engineering judgments and the information gathered from brain storming sessions with experts, the agencies' officials, and the stakeholders of the system. Based on this study, specific major categories of water pollution reduction projects were defined and in each category, several projects were identified. The effectiveness of the proposed water pollution control projects is also assessed using the MCDM method and water quality simulation model. The total cost of implementation of the projects was also estimated and the projects were prioritized based on their potential impact on water pollution control. The results of this study show that the proposed methodology is of a significant in developing the master plans for river systems.